So Obama won! Really?

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Since this election day passed, there has been much speculation by conservative pundits as to why the Republican lost. Was it from Romney campaign flubs, Bain Capital or an onslaught of Hispanic votes? Or did they misinterpret the trend of independent voters? Of course, it may have been from one or all, but to what extent?

In combination, were they enough to swing the election to Obama? Probably not. More likely is what they missed: the effects of voting fraud.

There may have been some mischief with the voting machine calibrations, votes from unregistered voters (as reported in Ohio), multiple voting, fraudulent registrations etc. But in truth there may be something more significant.

There were 118.6 million votes cast for president in 2012, and 129.4 million in 2008, a drop of 10.8 million. Of these, Romney received 57.8 million votes, getting 2.1 million less than the 59.9 million McCain did in 2008. How could there have been less votes for Romney than for McCain, who had only lukewarm party acceptance, then and who lost many votes by those enamored by an upstart, Obama? And which party suffered most from fewer voters? As Obama now received 8.7 million less, one might expect it would be the Democrats.

Does it make sense that a tenth of the registered Republicans would suddenly decide not to vote, when for months they were universally energized to vote because of their deep dissatisfaction with the current administration, particularly over “Obamacare”? This when the polls indicated Romney was essentially tied with Obama? Hardly. More likely many of their votes weren’t counted!

The resolve of Republicans to vote in 2012 was unprecedented as demonstrated by swamped precincts and long lines waiting to vote. This is certainly contrary to what would be expected from the drop in vote total. And this was in addition to a large number of votes cast early. Some, of course, were avid Democrats, but Democrat enthusiasm had been far less than that of the Republicans. Further, it was found that most of that low 5.8 percent claiming to be “independents” were for Romney. But when the election came to be, a half million of them appeared to have switched their votes, or were some were really Democrats falsely claiming?

Then there are those pundits that have routinely followed presidential elections over the years: the supposedly unbiased University of Colorado Professors, and Dick Morris, Michael Barone, Karl Rove and even Newt Gingrich, who were all predicting Romney would win, some even to win big.

How could they all have been so wrong, Obama winning electoral votes 332 to 206? Because they were unable to evaluate or quantify the effect of fraud on the vote counts.

From this it appears that all the votes weren’t counted, they being Republican votes, 366,000 of which could have reversed the results in those “battleground” states. How convenient dismissing those early ballots, too! This might also explain why the Democrats gained in the Senate when of the 33 seats being contended 23 were held by democrats. Because of widespread dissatisfaction with congress, wouldn’t it be expected that there would be some democrat losses rather than gains to 25 of the 33? One might surmise from this that the Republican ballots in some key states were somehow lost or destroyed before counting began thus giving the election to Obama.

This smacks of being intentional and Chicago style politics apparently again stole an election, where, if you vote with the majority, your ballot doesn’t count unless you are a Democrat.

An administration fraught with scandals like Fast and Furious and Benghazi, and one of recognized inept economic and international policies might just resort to “whatever it takes.” Remember the questionable JFK’s 1960 “victory” over Nixon decided by votes from Illinois?

So these conservative commentators should reject their condescension and become furious that our election system has become subverted. How could they accept having our elections mimic those in Iran, Cuba and Venezuela where the outcomes are decided by the government?

Tampering with the ballots can be verified. As it was found that about 95 percent of Republicans nationwide voted for Romney, fraud should be suspected if stricken votes reduced this to an unrealistic level. In questionable counties the number of those Republican votes counted could then be compared to actual number of voters having signed the precinct Registration Books giving their names and party. Similarly, the signatures with early voting could be checked for party affiliation, too. It seems investigations would be quite prudent, this having been a particularly critical election.

Ed Westervelt lives in Nevada City.

An administration fraught with scandals … and one of recognized inept economic and international policies might just resort to “whatever it takes.”